Photo Apps for Your Smart Phone

I am probably the worst photographer ever. I concede that. I don’t read user manuals, so I never know how I am supposed to operate the equipment I have available for use. These days, I don’t even bring my camera to most events; I rely on my iPhone for videoing and taking photos. Most times, I have to shoot somebody or something 3-4 times before I actually get a half-way decent photo. Yesterday at a meeting, my friend had to help me turn on the flash…I couldn’t even remember how to do that. So, last night, I decided to read my I-phone manual, updates from IOs and research a few apps that are available.

Instagram

Instagram provides an easy way to share your photos from your mobile phone. Using one of the app’s 17 pre-set filters to adjust lighting and color (sepias, black and white, etc.). You can share the enhanced photos on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram’s own social network. One of the reviews I read mentioned that Instagram has a limited range of filters and camera effects, and it isn’t always easy to edit pictures with it–but I’m willing to bet my new photos will be a whole lot better than my old photos! I enjoyed Instagram’s blog http://blog.instagram.com/, check it out!

Photosynth

Photosynth lets you take 360-degree panoramic photos that become interactive on a smartphone or computer screen. The app guides you as you stand in one place and capture photos in all directions. Then it “stitches” those images together to create a panorama that viewers can scroll around in and zoom in and out. You can share the panorama on Facebook, Twitter or Photosynth.net. It looks pretty cool to me…check out their site http://photosynth.net/. By the way, I forgot to mention that the app is available for both iPhone3GS and above, the iPad 2 and above, the 4th generation iPad Touch, and Windows Phone 7.5 and above.

The Photosynth apps, tools and service are all free, and you can make your photosynths public, view them, share them with others, and embed them on your blog or website, too. According to Photosynth, you receive 20GB of space for public content, and 1GB of space for unlisted content. I can’t wait to play with this app more!

TiltShift

Have fun with Tiltshift

For some fun and creativity, check out the TiltShift app. Applying the app affects the color, brightness, contrast, color saturation. It also blurs the edges of a picture, creating an optical illusion that makes everything in the photo look miniature. It is one of several cool photo apps from the Japanese designer, Takayuki Fukatsu, of Arts & Mobile. The basic app is free; there is a slight fee for upload and album. For iOS only, though.

Facebook Camera

Currently, Camera, is only available for the iPhone; it is a free download from the iPhone App Store. Facebook’s new camera app allows for easy sharing of photos on the social media site. It’s an improvement on posting photos using its main mobile app. Ironically, Facebook recently snapped up the popular Instagram photo sharing app for a cool $1 billion, so many folks were perplexed when Facebook released its own camera app a few weeks ago.The two apps share a few similar features. They are both free. Both have a scrollable feed of photos posted by your friends and other people you choose to follow. They also have a set of tools, or filters, which let you adjust contrast, color and other attributes.

iPhone User Tips

I mentioned that I decided to read my iPhone manual, and did some more research online. This is what I learned about using my iPhone camera:

HDR Shot

“Tap HDR and take a photo. The iSight camera captures three photos from that one shot, each with a different exposure level. Then it layers the shots together to create a single photo that combines the best parts of each shot. The wide range of light is more accurate in an HDR photo. And iPhone saves both the original and the HDR photo in your Camera Roll. You can clearly see the difference.” quote directly from iPhone site

I am going to practice taking photos with the HDR feature enabled, and the grid on. A few days ago, Wendy did point out that I can zoom in and out by shrinking or enlarging the screen, so that was new and helpful information. Maybe with some practice, my photo skills will improve a bit. In any event, I have a few new apps that might make some of those pictures a bit more artistic. I hope so, anyways! (Link http://www.apple.com/iphone/tips/)

Greenville Marketing Lab partners, Wendy Lynam and Martha Winebarger, are bringing online and offline together — face to face — to connect on the local level. We are passionate about helping local businesses develop successful and innovative strategies to help build their brand, improve their sales and meet their objectives. Video marketing, SEO, social media, public relations and event planning are just a few of our favorite tools…and nothing beats good old fashioned networking to connect in real life!